Helene

Isabella Boyston has donated signed pointe shoes to support pointesagainstchildslavery (Cloud & Victory fundraiser):

A few weeks ago the Kennedy Center presented "DEMO: Jerome Robbins- An American Dance Genius" by Damien Woetzel, with Tiler Peck and Heather Watts. Rebecca King Ferraro and Michael Breeden interviewed Woetzel and Peck about the program and dancing Robbins for their podcast "Conversations on Dance": http://conversationsondancepod.com/2017/11/04/live-from-the-kennedy-center-damian-woetzel-tiler-peck-on-jerome-robbins/

Michael Breeden and Rebecca King Ferraro interviewed Meryl Rosofsky and Adrian Danchig-Waring as a preview of the Guggenheim presentation for their podcast, "Conversations on Dance": http://conversationsondancepod.com/2017/10/30/works-process-guggenheim-tanaquil-le-clercqs-ballet-cook-book/

Thank you so much, @sandik! It was such a good presentation, and I'm glad to revisit it and to have a record of it.

I read this article by Tom Colicchio about sexism in the restaurant industry, and it seemed to me that there is a parallel between that world and the ballet world with regard to diversity: https://medium.com/@tcolicchio/an-open-letter-to-male-chefs-742ca722e8f2

I'm not sure if he discusses how he came to write the book in the forward and/or acknowledgements, but he does in this interview with Marina Harss in Pointe Magazine: http://www.pointemagazine.com/david-hallberg-opens-up-about-his-new-memoir-his-career-threatening-injury-and-imagining-life-after-ballet-2505455740.html

A new video of excerpts from "Plot Point" on PNB's Facebook Page:

Oh, yes -- I was expecting to like "the second detail" best, and I liked it the least

Luckily I was with a friend who was able to warn me about how graphic the surgery scenes were, and I was able to cover my eyes and get an elbow when it was over. I remember a medical channel on cable TV in NYC in the early '90's, and while channel-surfing, happened upon arthroscopic knee surgery, the memory of which still makes me shudder.

The website hasn't yet been updated, but I got a heads up from @sf_herminator that Noelani Pantastico reported that and why she won't be dancing this weekend on Instagram: I hope she heals quickly and completely

"Emergence" is a highly sought-after work, especially in Europe. PNB is bringing it to a multi-week festival in Paris in June-July 2018. Peter Boal said that he first became aware of Pite when Noelani Pantastico pointed him to Kidd Pivot's run at On the Boards (Seattle). He gave her carte blanche for what she wanted to do in Seattle, and "Plot Point" is playing now, with "Emergence" returning in the Spring. The first time I saw it was when NBoC toured it West. Maybe it, too, was on the same program as "Men in Black."

The last time Kain toured NBoC to the West -- skipping everything in the middle -- Men in Black was on the program.

Not in my experience, and I've seen a bunch of Kudelka's ballets. For the record, I really like "Four Seasons." I also appreciate what he was trying to say in "Swan Lake" Act III. Let me repeat: I do not agree that hiring one's relatives is, by definition, bad, inappropriate, or incorrect. And I don't care what people say. Again, I haven't seen Hannah Fischer dance, so I have no opinion on her dancing or whether her promotion is appropriate. For better or worse, the Board is the Boss. If other people are pulling the Boss's strings, that's on the Boss. For the people who work for the Boss, if they get directed by the Boss to behave in a specific way/make certain decisions, they can either 1. Fight back until they are fired/pushed out/the Boss changes 2. Ignore the Boss until they are fired/pushed out/the Boss changes 3. Act passive-aggressively until they are fired/pushed out/the Boss changes. If they are misbehaving themselves, it's up to the Boss to set them right, and, if they refuse, get rid of them. For a prime example of this, see: LIssner in "The Paris Opera." Ballet companies are workplaces like any other. Dancers, who are ambitious and mostly want the same limited resources, have many, many reasons for discontent. Unless they go on official record that this particular case has caused them discontent, it's not up for discussion here, since, until then, it's not official news. The "wider" audience has plenty of places to make any discontent known.

First, an Artistic Director does not have unlimited and unilateral power. Balanchine's answer to that was to threaten to walk: to go to Switzerland and start another little company over which he had more control. The Miami City Ballet Board fired Edward Villella. Peter Martins hired his son and his son's half brother, and both became Principal Dancers at NYCB. He kept his wife, Darci Kistler, once a great dancer, on the payroll for long than I thought she merited it, and there was precedent for that at NYCB: Allegra Kent was kept on the payroll for years without dancing until the Board would not longer support it. People have said lots of everything about it. Critics have said lots of everything about it. However, if the Board does not have such an issue with it, or is actively supporting it, and there's nothing illegal about it, it doesn't matter what people say. And it's not, by definition, a uniformly bad thing and without merit, unless we as individual don't think the person is deserving.

Simply because a family member is hired and/or promoted does not mean that nepotism is at work. I haven't seen Hannah Fischer this season, but plenty of dancers have had parents or aunts/uncles who were dancers and ballet master and who were remarkable dancers in their own right, at all levels. Kyra Nichols, Zoe Zien, Christopher d'Amboise, Maya Plisetskaya, Chan Hon Goh, and Andris Liepa are just a handful of dancers from dancing families. While not every child of a dancer has a dancer's body, their gene pools are a good start for a profession that has extreme physical type demands, even if they are someone looser in North America. In Russia and France, where physical conformity is enforced to the extreme for a specific aesthetic, it becomes even more likely that a child of two dancers will become one in the parents' company. I've seen a number of Kudelka works, some of which I've like, and some of which I haven't, but I've seen far more disciplined performances by NBoC under Kain.

I've seen the company under both regimes, and in my experience, the consistency of what was presented during Kudelka's leadership was uneven. As far as allowing "shenaningans" to happen, there is no official record of whether it was even a possibility during his time, and if you look at the historical connections in ballet companies across the world, having family in the company and/or administration -- artistic and business -- is quite common.

A 35-minute interview with Patricia Barker from New Zealand: http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/upbeat/audio/2018620538/rnzb-s-en-pointe-2018-season Francia Russell is staging "Divertimento No. 15" for Royal New Zealand Ballet!

Alexei Ratmansky posted about it to his Facebook Page:

First weekend "Meet the Artist" post-performance Q&A guests were: Friday: Leah Merchant Saturday matinee: Lucien Postlewaite. This performance is part of KUOW's "Front Row Center" program, which offers discounts on tickets and a live broadcast interview by Marcie Sillman (with Peter Boal) of that performance's "Meet the Artist." Saturday evening: James Moore. More to read and listen to: PNB Podcasts: Q&A with Crystal Pite before the Thursday, November 2 dress rehearsal. (~41 mins) Doug Fullington's pre-performance talk -- now dubbed "Ballet Talk" -- on "Her Story" (~32 mins) From the PNB Blog: Bringing Screenplays to Life:  Q&A with Crystal Pite What It Takes to Be Crystal Pite

If casting for Weekend 2 holds -- we're all on a Rachel Foster for second weekend watch -- there is one more opportunity, on Thursday, November 9, to see the cast that danced the PNB premiere of "Plot Point" and the stupendous cast that debuted in "Afternoon Ball" last night. In it, Leta Biasucci, Ezra Thomson (same role as Benjamin Griffiths), and Ryan Cardea (same role as Lucien Postlewaite) danced the street kids, while Cecilia Iliesiu -- who did the Second Stage speech before the show without notes! -- and Dylan Wald danced the Biedermeier couple. While there have always been glimpses of this intense, angry, wild Biasucci -- in the middle, Cendrillon for example -- she put it all out there with laser-like physical focus and articulation and a remarkable dynamic understanding of the changing relationships between her and each of the men. Ryan Cardea, a long-time member of the company, has been more and more eye-catching over the last couple of years in the corps, but, recently, he's been given the occasional major role, and not always an obvious one, and each time, like here, he has taken the opportunity and infused it with individuality, thoughtfulness, and narrative and emotional detail, and while making it entirely his own, has danced/performed it as well as anyone. Ezra Thomson's is simply among the top most versatile dancers I've ever seen, bring physical and mental intelligence to everything he does. This is the rare role where he can show the gamut of his range in the course of 20 minutes, from the angry mess of a young man to the sublime elegance in the dream scenes in the second part -- reminiscent of his beautiful Bluebird -- to the slow collapse of that dream, piece by piece. Iliesiu and Wald brought great energy and light to their roles in the Biedermeier couple. They'll also perform on Friday night, with Generosa, Poppe, and Loch, the latter two making their debuts. I've been thinking a lot about the endings of "Afternoon Ball" and "Plot Point," and I've been thinking that there's an intersection there. I'll continue to muse on it until I see it again next weekend.

Adding: Karel Cruz is such a great partner that the company's ballerinas rely upon him being cast this way. "Plot Point" showed an underrated and underused dimension to him, the ability to convey complex emotional resonance. Mr. Jones in "Plot Point" was a perfect role for him in this regard. From my point of view as an audience member, there wasn't enough of him in it -- it was a perfect amount for Pite's aims with the work -- but his performance in it lingers.

Just a few notes from Opening Night: Extraordinary portrayals by Benjamin Griffiths and Lucien Postlewaite in "Afternoon Ball." With "Plot Point," I think it's the best I've ever seen Postlewaite dance. Laura Tisserand is back, dancing with Miles Pertl as the Biedermeier couple. Between the exploration of the contrast of the movement quality between the characters and their replicas and its visceral effect and the way it plays with narrative and engages the mind, "Plot Point" is a knockout. It's a physical, emotional, and mental challenge to navigate between the linear and going along for the ride. Doug Fullington said in the pre-performance Ballet Talk that Lang originally wanted to use Copland, but then learned that Georgia O'Keefe, whose specific series of paintings inspired the work, hated Copland, so she switched. Copland reminds me often of the outdoors -- even without the beef commercial -- and big vistas. I love Britten's "Simple Symphony," but it reminds me of nurseries, water colors, and the indoors, and I don't get the impression that that was what Lang was going for choreographically. Edited to add: our posts crossed, @seattle_dancer!

It's in alphabetical order by last name, except where Pantastico replaced Foster.

Hmm, I just downloaded it -- I use Excel for Mac to create them -- and viewed on my Mac Mini, and it looks fine. Here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet:

Sorry -- I meant to say that Leta Biasucci's name often sounds like "Lia"/"Leah" when spoken in noisy rehearsal studios and demos (at least to these deaf ears). I shouldn't try to multi-task. . Casting for second weekend is up, and Rachel Foster is scheduled to be back on Friday (through Sunday) in "Plot Point" -- over half of the cast changes in those performances -- and Saturday and Sunday in "Afternoon Ball". Guillaume Basso makes his debut in "One Door to the Sky" on Thursday night, and the street kid trio in "Afternoon Ball" on Friday night is Angelica Generosa, Christian Poppe, and Steven Loch, with the latter two making their debuts. https://www.pnb.org/season/17-18/her-story/ Here is the link to the downloadable spreadsheet: Her Story 17 11 03.xlsx